How can I go about improving my speed (Sky BB)

Helllo all,

I've exhausted all other avenues so I have come to hopefully find some people who know more about ADSL than me (I'm an IT Engineer that deals with broadband quite frequently)

Basic information, I am on the Sky Unlimited broadband package and have been for over two years. I have had significant problems with my speed from the start.

To cut a long story short, I am currently synchronising at 1.9 meg with the following line stats:

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 1952 kbps 768 kbps
Line Attenuation 62.5db 31.5db
Noise Margin 7.6db 7.0db

Things I have tried so far (all tests done directly into BT Master Socket)
1) Tried 3 seperate routers (Sky provided router/Netgear DG834/Draytek 2830)
2) Multiple different filters on the line
3) Multiple different RJ11 cables

I have raised this multiple times with Sky Broadband (albeit not in the past 6 months). They have tried retraining the line/setting a manual profile on the line.

I am approximately 3km from the exchange according to http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_mapping. This also has an estimated speed of 3.5Mbps. If I run through the broadband checker on Sky's website, they advise a speed between 2.7Mbps to 7Mbps at my address. O2 Broadband reckons around five. I have never had a sync speed over 2.0Mbps.

I also happen to be living directly next door to family (who are 10 metres away). Their line attenuation is 45 and they have a sync speed of just under 7.0Mbps.

It's incredibly frustrating as I quite often work from home and it's like wading through treacle. Knowing that literally 10 metres away from me someone is getting 400% my speed is incredibly frustrating. I suspect the key here is the attenuation. Where the BT line comes into my property I have something additional on the end of my line that none of the other houses in the street have. I've uploaded a diagram here:

http://i.imgur.com/97NXZ.jpg

I have had BT Openreach out to this issue once. He checked the line over and because the line was stable and his tests didn't show any issues he refused to do anything. He is right (the line is stable) but it is ridiculously slow!

Any help/advice anyone could put my way would be so appreciated.

Have you tried connecting into the test socket of the master? If not that is your first course of action.

If that doesn't help then it is likely you have a bit of bad copper or maybe some aluminium in the line somewhere. If that is the case I suspect it would be very difficult to get BT to do anything about it as they are under no obligation to provide you fast broadband.

That black tube-like thing is simply a modern waterproof cable joint, joining the incoming cable from the pole to the wire down to the master. Are you sure the loop isn't just a large "drip loop", only entering it once?

I imagine one of the engineers you had installed it to replace the small square white box close to it. The extra length could just be what was needed to reach the white one, with a small loop there.

Is/was there a leaky gutter joint above it?

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 05-Sep-12 09:35:08)

Rob is right thats just a cable joint with a loop of cable so no worries.

Maybe try and get sky to order a "BB Boost " job ? this is to get a OR BB bod out to try and get the line to go as fast as it can .

I would have previously said no but looking now there is quite a lot of dirt there which could suggest a leak. Do you think it is leaking inside? How would I resolve that kind of thing.

In reply to a post by btbert:

Rob is right thats just a cable joint with a loop of cable so no worries.

Maybe try and get sky to order a "BB Boost " job ? this is to get a OR BB bod out to try and get the line to go as fast as it can .

So if I ask Sky for a "Broadband boost job" they will help do you think or do I have to meet a certain criteria?

You are getting about the right speed for your attenuation. You need to explain why your neighbours have a much lower attenuation. Are they on same exchange? It is possible for 2 houses on boundary of exchange areas to be on diff ones.

You should get that leaky gutter joint replaced, by a roofer/gutter guy. It can't be helping matters and will eventually torrent (even if you don't use P2P )..

Sky don't raise Boost tasks. Only BTBB/business and Plusnet.

The difference will be, almost certainly, the E-side cable used. The pair from the exchange to the street cabinet.
Get Sky to raise another SFI visit. When the engineer comes, ask them to ring the coach line and ask them to check on SEAM for the best E-side range, they should also be able to advise the engineer of spares.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

The difference will be, almost certainly, the E-side cable used. The pair from the exchange to the street cabinet.
Get Sky to raise another SFI visit. When the engineer comes, ask them to ring the coach line and ask them to check on SEAM for the best E-side range, they should also be able to advise the engineer of spares.

Excellent. Thanks for this it's very helpful. Last time the engineer came I did ask him if he could put me on a different exchange side line but he refused as there was no visible fault on the line.

Other than a good cup of tea and some chocolate hobnobs, is there any way I can pursuade them to do that?

I have one of them junction boxes

Nothing to worry about

Speed wise for your attenuation you're on about the right speed. Getting an engineer to change the e side and d side would change the attenuation but this could be a challenge to get done.

Oddly enough we have one of those joint repair boxes too. We originally did have ADSL here which ran at about 1.5Meg.

We got a 3G modem and never had ADSL again - 3G currently runs at anything between 6Mbps and 12Mbps down and 2Mbps up. That's with 3.

We're 2.5km from the exchange with line length of 3.6km - reading your original post I wondered if you were in the same area

I have stats for a fair number of connections in the area and there is very little correlation between line length and sync rate. Certainly the highest sync rates are among the shorter lines, but by no means the shortest.

Our 3.6km line does 2Meg sync, a 3.1km one does 5.8Meg, a 2.5km one does 4Meg. It's all over the place. And could well be to do with aluminium in the circuits.

If you can put up with jitter (variable latency), AND you get a decent signal from a 3 base station, AND it isn't contended (lots of ifs there) you might find 3G does what you want.

When it's performing really abysmally:

http://speedtest.net/result/2116883665.png

When it's performing well:

http://speedtest.net/result/2130964855.png

Do "try before you buy" e.g. get it on PAYG, as it might be anywhere between useless and excellent.

How is line length measured?

Attenuation is a much better judge of actual length.

Are these speeds from speedtests, then stop doing them for the purpose of comparing lines (speedtests compare the pc,adsl,network,ISP,internet - i.e. too many variables)

You need to compare router stats and then check whether using test socket improves speeds

Line lengths measuired by physically walking the distance (you can see them, and this isn't a built up area so they don't have places to "loop around"), and information from ISP querying database.

ADSL speeds are sync speeds from the modems (have complete stats), actual throughput is even worse.

If you work backwards from the sync rates to work out the line lengths the figures cease to be believable especially when you compare near adjacent lines from the same pole on the same loop which can differ greatly.

The impression I get is that the network is so very old that once you get over about 3km line length it becomes a bit of a lottery which might be what's impacting the OP.

But you MUST take into account issues like different target noise margins, effect of peoples home wiring.

Does the attenuation of these lines on the same pole differ greatly? Or just the sync speed?

I never work out line length from sync rate, but do use attenuation. Now unknown presence of aluminium can throw a spanner in the works there, but for copper cabling it is usually consistent because of the physics.

Every day someone surfaces with poor speeds, but some wiring changes in home or tweaks to noise margin by ISP can get them better speeds.

'Network enhancement' is a legitimate clear code for an SFI. As I said, if the engineer calls they should soon see that there is improvements to be made.

Time for an update - I've pushed Sky to get an Openreach engineer out. I did a full replace of everything (again) at their insistence and they messed about with the profile again and there was little change. Subsequently I have an Openreach engineer coming out on Saturday morning and I am going to plead with him to sort the issue. Sky told me their copper line test kept failing (sometimes with high capacitance) even when there was nothing plugged into the master socket which clearly shows some sort of an issue.

I'll let you know how it goes - once again thank you for everyone's suggestions.

As has been mentioned the best way to get this sorted...

Get onto a different e side / d side. This will solve the issue better than anything else...
The E-side is the cable from exchange to your local green cabinet.
The d side is the cable from the cabinet to your house.

From the exchange to the cabinet are several different cables. All running different ways and all different lengths.
This is why your attenuation can be much higher than a neighbors. They use a shorter e side cable than you. This means that the neighbour's cable from the exchange to the green cabinet to the exchange is shorter than yours.

An engineer can change your e-side cable to the shorter one. So you then also get a shorter line, better attenuation and much quicker speeds.
In many cases there's often a better e side than even the neighbor has with better speeds. (don't get too hopeful though)

As has been mentioned ask for them to look for the best E-side / d-side...
Basically the engineer has a tool that can show them the quality and length of the e side cable...

Often a longer better quality cable can give a better speed. So leave it to the engineer.

In some cases if you live far from a green cabinet, changing the d-side can be a good thing. BUT usually the big changes are made by changing the e-side cable.

E-SIDE = CABLE FROM THE GREEN CAB TO EXCHANGE
D-SIDE = CABLE FROM GREEN CAB TO YOUR HOUSE.

AIM = get the e side cable changed over... Unless you live very far from green cab in which case d-side could be advisable.

This is what you really want (fingers crossed). I really hope it works out for you.

Sometimes there's no shorter e-sides available (which can be a massive bummer). This OFTEN happens on new housing estates when loads of new houses are built... The properties around have already taken all the good short lines up... Therefore new estates often end up on terrible e-sides that haven't been used because they're pretty dire. Hence new estates often don't get the best speeds.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Fri 07-Sep-12 01:26:38)

Lets hope he's not already on the best cable.

Had a similar issue last week, found it was poor insulation in the cabinate, remote linetest showed everything perfect, in real life there was slight contact with an unused d-side on both legs causing high capacitance.

Thanks for your detailed and helpful reply, ukhardy, My green cab is about 50 metres away so I will definitely push for the E-side cable to be changed. Does anyone know if the BT Openreach Engineer is obligated to do this if I ask for it? I suspect not but is there anything I can say that will pursuade him to do it?

We're not on a new housing estate so hopefully that is not an issue. Just out of pure interest, I assume he puts me on a different E-side cable at the green cab? Does he then have to drive to the Exchange and re-patch me in the exchange? I've often wondered how it works. I just assume it is similar to the data networks I am used to installing.

Thanks again everyone.

Definitely not obliged but a nice guy would do it for you

Persuade him to do it. Claim it's a nightmare to use and there's often 5+ people using the broadband so it's almost like dial-up. Say that it often drops to below 1Mbps overnight in the router statistics... Tell him that all of the neighbours have better sync speed. Hopefully he'll take some sympathy on you and try to make it better

I'll certainly turn the charm on, thanks for the tips! I'll update again tomorrow after they have been.

Well - the BT Openreach engineer came out this morning and told me he was a line engineer not a broadband engineer as sky had raised this as a Line fault. After plying him with biscuits and tea I pushed forward anyway and told him my story. He seemed sympathetic but he wouldn't change the E-side cable. What he did do thought, to his credit, is look over every inch of the D-side. He checked the joint and original connection that we thought had water leaking in (it hadn't), he got a cherry picker out to go up the telegraph pole to check for corrosion on the wire (he found a little bit and removed it and reattached the line). He also recrimped me in the green cab as he said it wasn't as good as it could be. He then left after advising I re-raised with sky to put it through as a broadband issue rather than a line fault. I then checked my sync speed after he'd gone.

No change in line attenuation but my broadband speed had gone up 0.2Mbps. Not what I was hoping for but we all know that the biggest change would have been the e-side cable being changed. To top off a run of bad luck that 0.2Mbps pushed the broadband to be the absolute minimum that Sky would accept hence they won't call Openreach out again for a broadband fault. Catch 22.

It is patently ridiculous that I can get quicker internet on my phone rather than a dedicated line into the house, but there is literally nothing I can do now unless any of you guys have any ideas?

Edited by deleted (Sat 08-Sep-12 21:40:39)

but there is literally nothing I can do now unless any of you guys have any ideas?

Kick off with Sky, go round to your nieghbour and write down their line stats, keep on and on at Sky, they are your ISP, it is for them to resolve this. If they won't, then ask for a MAC code, and go to an ISP who will.

Just out of pure interest, I assume he puts me on a different E-side cable at the green cab? Does he then have to drive to the Exchange and re-patch me in the exchange? I've often wondered how it works.

Having found a good clean spare amongst those suggested by the routing and records team, the engineer will drive back to the exchange and run a new jumper (pair of wires) between the original (in your case) TAMS out block and the new barpair. If the engineer is VERY lucky, it will be a manned exchange and they can just ring up and have someone do it for them. This is VERY rare, at least round these parts.

There is no speed obligation, let alone an obligation to even provide a service. Providers are within their rights to say sorry we cannot meet your expectations, feel free to leave with no penalty

Which was my second option for the OP, leave and find another ISP who WILL fight one's corner.

Try rebooting the modem late at night, you might be able to lose the 0.2

Well good to see that the OR guy give it a good look over but would have been quicker / easer to just change out the E side ?

Perhaps but depends on what freedom of operation they had to do things. Or maybe there are no spare E sides to swap over to, or all the good ones are already occupied?

He didn't check the availability of any E-side (as far as I'm aware anyway). To be honest I think my story impacted on him because he did seem genuinely bothered about sorting the issue. To be honest, I don't know if that's in his abilities (changing the e-side) it may well have been as when I discussed it he said he wouldn't know which one was better E-side (all though from what you guys have told me this is clearly not the case I didn't want to call him a liar as I thought it may well impact on what he does for me!)

I tried Sky again and to be honest they are just not bothered. They won't even let me speak to second line support. I could get to second line support but it would involve deception and lying, which as a fellow engineer would annoy me if someone did that to me.

At this point the best idea I have is getting a brand new line installed (while keeping the old one active). This will force me onto (fingers crossed) a new e-side as well as having brand new copper run to the house. I can then simply cancel my other one.

It's a risky manoeuvre but if I can get a line installed for free I will do it. Might have to end up on BT Internet though.... which I can't say I'm too happy about.

It's not too difficult to get someone back out. Just ask for customer solutions team. I have a few emails of a few people within the team myself (I know an absolutely great guy). I'll forward you some details.

Also get this raised via the executive team at sky as a complaint. You had raised this as a slow line and someone sent you out a line engineer. Not good enough. I'll PM you info of both teams. I'm not sure if you're supposed to message them all directly but heyho - what can it hurt!

If you currently have only 1 line then having a new line installed will not involve running new copper to the house as they will use the spare pair in the existing line. But it would make use of different cabling in the rest of the trip back to the exchange so may still fix the issue.